Karlheinz FÃ¶rster (born 25 July 1958 in Mosbach) was a former German football player.

The younger brother of Bernd FÃ¶rster, Karlheinz took part in the 1982 and the 1986 FIFA World Cup. His defendings skills neutralized opponent players except in the finals; both times he finished runner-up with West Germany in these competitions.

The younger of two brothers in West Germany's UEFA Euro 1980-winning squad, Karl-Heinz FÃ¶rster would outshine his sibling Bernd both in that tournament and throughout a career that brought him continuous admiration and adulation as one of the world's most irrepressible central defenders.

Aged only 21, FÃ¶rster completely neutralised Belgian dangerman Jan Ceulemans in the UEFA Euro 1980 final to round off an exceptional championship. He would remain in situ for the next six years, accumulating 81 international caps and leaving his mark on UEFA Euro 1984, where the Germans exited in the group stage, as well as two successive FIFA World Cups. A Bundesliga winner with VfB Stuttgart in 1984, he left the club he had joined as a youngster for Olympique de Marseille in 1986, prematurely bringing his international career to a close, aged 28, as he did so. He bowed out at club level in 1990 in style by winning the French double.

On club level he played in 272 Bundesliga matches for VfB Stuttgart, scoring seventeen goals before he joined Olympique Marseille after the 1985â€“86 season. Olympique Marseille paid VfB Stuttgart 3.5 million Deutsche Mark for the then 28-year-old defender.